It’s an opportunity for them to honor the significance of coaches or people who influenced and nurtured their professional careers while growing up.

The evening will conclude with a speech from Oakland Raiders coach Jack Del Rio.

But prior to his turn on the podium, it will be Annette Lopez addressing the crowd. So how does a relatively unknown figure fit into this equation?

The 33-year-old is the event’s Coach of the Year.

Keep trying

A 2005 graduate of Stanford, where she was part of a national championship team in women’s rugby, Lopez is one of roughly 7,000 coaches at Coaching Corps who have worked with over 100,000 youths in underserved communities across the country in after-school sports programs.

For her, it’s all about the opportunity to share an infectious enthusiasm with a group of people, particularly vibrant boys and girls.

“It just comes natural, I think,” she said. “I really enjoy being around kids. I love teaching them about life, as well. Because I think that’s the perfect time to teach them life skills, and they’re not even realizing you’re trying to teach them. For example, if they keep shooting and they keep missing, I tell them, ‘You know what? That’s OK. That’s how life is going to be sometimes. You’re going to keep trying and trying, and it may not go in, but you’ll find that eventually it will.’ So they’re learning more than just the game.”

In her speech, Lopez plans to mention how instead of focusing on success, sometimes the bigger lesson comes from overcoming failure and setbacks.

“I’m not perfect, I still have my downs and I can get sad about them,” Lopez said. “But I really try and I find my courage when I can maybe get out of that faster than other people because of what my dad taught me. And I have him to thank for that.”

Currently living in Long Beach, she attends Cal State Dominguez Hills as a graduate student in occupational therapy.

Once she was deemed a finalist for the award, Lopez went through an interview process and found out in late November that she was chosen. Her father, Rene, is flying in from San Antonio for the event, just like he did recently to film a piece for Sunday’s 9 p.m. broadcast on CSN Bay Area, which will tape the Coaching Corps Game Changer Awards at The Fairmont hotel.

“When we shot that video, I was already thinking it, but he offered: ‘You know Annette, when you move back, I would love to coach with you,’ ” said Lopez, who plans to return to her native Texas upon completion of her degree. “And I was like, ‘I was thinking the same thing.’ So it’s really kept that bond strong between us.”

‘Mesmerized’

Lopez participated in a multitude of sports while growing up in San Antonio, with Rene often acting as her coach since kindergarten until middle school — soccer and track in the fall, basketball in the winter, then volleyball, softball and tennis in the spring.

One day in seventh grade, she tuned in to watch a women’s basketball game and focused her attention on a 5-foot-6 point guard, Jamila Wideman, the smallest player on the team.

“I just watched her and was mesmerized with her,” Lopez said. “And I was like, ‘Wow, where does she go to school? She’s so good.’ And it said ‘Stanford’ on her jersey.”

She felt an immediate pull to Stanford.

“I just felt such a passion for the school because I saw that it was very competitive and unique,” Lopez said. “I’m always trying to strive to do the best I can, and I knew it was going to be a really good challenge for me.”

Tryouts

A 5-8 guard whose AAU team qualified for nationals, prior to stepping foot on The Farm she never made contact with Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer, who is approaching 1,000 career wins and was honored last year with the Coaching Corps Lifetime Achievement Award.

They finally crossed paths during a two-player tryout her freshman year that lasted roughly 30 minutes.

“When I tried out for the team, she was very personable,” Lopez said. “Still intimidating. I’m sure if I would have played for her, I would have been a little intimidated, but I probably wouldn’t have told her that.

“They had us doing drills and it was pretty exhausting because it was just two of us,” added Lopez, who doesn’t remember the score but knows she won the one-on-one portion of the tryout.

A phone call from the coaching staff informed Lopez that she would not be offered a walk-on role on the team at this time, but undeterred she asked for feedback and tried out again as a sophomore, with the same result.

“When I didn’t make the team, I still obviously loved sports,” Lopez said. “I loved working out, staying active. I just like the way it makes me feel good. So I joined an intramural team and I just felt unfulfilled. Even though intramural teams are great, they were more like weekend warriors, they would just go out and play. I just wanted more of that competitive feel.”

That opportunity presented itself in the form of women’s rugby, a club team at Stanford.

She played two seasons on the squad, and during her senior year Jonathan Griffin, an Irish coach who had previously lived in the United Kingdom, entered the fray and within months guided Stanford to its second of four national championships in 2005.

Revelation

But his most lasting impression on Lopez was left during a one-on-one meeting he requested with each player upon arrival.

“One of his first questions was, ‘How can I make you a better player?’ ” Lopez said. “And I’ve always been used to coaches telling me what to do, but I’ve never had a coach ask me, ‘What can I do for you?’ And I just remember gravitating so much to what he was saying and I just wanted to play so well for him. And I fell in love with a new sport. I actually was enjoying myself again.”

Shortly thereafter, Lopez graduated with a bachelor’s in human biology, with an area of concentration in health and human performance.

She immediately dove into a career as a personal trainer, but didn’t know how to break into the coaching ranks until March of 2016. That’s around the time when Coaching Corps, which was founded in 2002 and is based out of Oakland, paid a visit to the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus.

Lopez began as a middle school coed basketball coach, then joined a boys soccer team at the same school as its strength and conditioning team. Finally, at a second location, she formed a strong bond with a transfer from China named Joyce.

“She just happened to love basketball, so it worked out,” Lopez said. “She didn’t have any friends, and I could tell she just really wanted someone to play basketball with.”

It proved to be a can’t-miss situation.

• The 90-minute broadcast will re-air on CSN Bay Area Monday at noon and Tuesday at 8 p.m. Visit CSNBayArea.com for additional air dates and times.

Vytas Mazeika is a sports reporter at The Daily News based out of Menlo Park. He covers athletics at every level, from high school to Stanford to the pros. He also designs the sports pages and copy edits for The Daily News print edition. Mazeika graduated from Carlmont High in 1994 and earned an English bachelor's degree from UCLA.